IPv6 – Sample IP address and precautions to be taken by IPv4 users

Internet world is getting ready for the big change in the protocol we use use at present. Yes, we are all about to change from IPv4 to IPv6. The Internet Society sponsors World IPv6 Day on June 8, 2011, in which Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai, Limelight Networks, Cisco, Meebo, Genius, W3C and others will participate for 24 hours in the first global test of IPv6. So we can all enjoy and watch what exactly this change means to normal internet users.

Whats up with IPv4 ?

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth revision in the development of the Internet Protocol (IP) and it is the first version of the protocol to be widely deployed. Together with IPv6, it is at the core of standards-based internetworking methods of the Internet. IPv4 is still by far the most widely deployed Internet Layer protocol. As of 2011, IPv6 deployment is still in its infancy.

Address representations

Notation

Value

Conversion from dot-decimal

Dot-decimal notation

192.0.2.235

N/A

Dotted Hexadecimal

0xC0.0x00.0x02.0xEB

Each octet is individually converted to hexadecimal form

Dotted Octal

0300.0000.0002.0353

Each octet is individually converted into octal

Hexadecimal

0xC00002EB

Concatenation of the octets from the dotted hexadecimal

Decimal

3221226219

The 32-bit number expressed in decimal

Octal

030000001353

The 32-bit number expressed in octal

Say hi to IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a version of the Internet Protocol (IP) that is designed to succeed Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). The Internet operates by transferring data in small packets that are independently routed across networks as specified by an international communications protocol known as the Internet Protocol. Each data packet contains two numeric addresses that are the packet’s origin and destination devices. Since 1981, IPv4 has been the publicly used Internet Protocol, and it is currently the foundation for most Internet communications. The Internet’s growth has created a need for more addresses than IPv4 has. IPv6 allows for vastly more numerical addresses, but switching from IPv4 to IPv6 may be a difficult process.

Sample IPv6 IP address

IPv6 addresses have two logical parts: a 64-bit network prefix, and a 64-bit host address part. (The host address is often automatically generated from the interface MAC address.) An IPv6 address is represented by 8 groups of 16-bit hexadecimal values separated by colons (:) shown as follows:

A typical example of an IPv6 address is

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334.

The hexadecimal digits are case-insensitive.

The 128-bit IPv6 address can be abbreviated with the following rules:

Rule one: Leading zeroes within a 16-bit value may be omitted. For example, the address fe80:0000:0000:0000:0202:b3ff:fe1e:8329 may be written as fe80:0:0:0:202:b3ff:fe1e:8329

Rule two: A single occurrence of consecutive groups of zeroes within an address may be replaced by a double colon. For example, fe80:0:0:0:202:b3ff:fe1e:8329 becomesfe80::202:b3ff:fe1e:8329